Why? Is one [Tradition] not enough?
When you can't even recognize the Truth/s of your own, no. It becomes useful, perhaps necessary, to look elsewhere. Once you have a little better perspective (which includes the
recognition that Truth is EVERYwhere) ... THEN look back at your own.
Try it sometime, Thomas. Your life will be enriched.
ah-ah-ah ... I didn't say you *couldn't* see or recognize Truth w/in your own tradition. Just don't let's pretend it's any more, or less, than it is.
Thomas said:
I would find a tradition and go for it ... an infinite number of lifetimes would still not be enough to exhaust any one tradition.
So you would, so you have, and so you do. And I don't even disagree. If I count the various
traditions or paths I've followed in 7 or 8 recent lifetimes, I won't get that many answers. What should that tell you?
Regardless, I reject - of
necessity - your, and anyone else's proposition that
all i need to do is chant Hare, or sit and worship Buddha, or give myself over to Jesus ... and that thereby I shall
attain to enlightenment or salvation in this very lifetime.
Why?
Because I know better.
Better yet, why not practice the Dharma [live the life of Service] ... and SEE how quickly I can get to the goal.
{Hint: If
my Salvation/Liberation alone were the/my goal, perhaps matters would be easier. Since I do NOT choose this as my goal, however, beyond a degree to which it obviously applies, and must ... there's more to think about,
or attempt.}
And if that doesn't work for you, YOU walk
your Path, and I'll walk
mine ... but do please BUTT OUT if all you feel like doing is finding fault with
me or mine. Isn't that what Respect entails?
Of course, but you tend to make
all sorts of pretense to this, while I seem to have a knack for helping your TRUE COLORS to really shine, to really show forth. I'm not exactly
proud of this, Thomas. It simply
is ... what it
IS. Remember, either we LEARN from our mistakes ...
or ~
Perhaps it's a British thing. Something about refusal to accept another's Freedoms, inherent,
God-given ... and deserving (perhaps
needing) of being exercised.
As Bob Dylan put it (and as I likely heard it
last time around): "A hero is someone who understands the
responsibility that comes with his freedom."
What he
did not say is that part of my job, or yours, is to go around telling people that Theosophy is for losers, or that Roman Catholicism is a dead-end road.
Keep that shit up, and you've written for yourself a
very difficult Path, ahead. MARK {Andrew, actually, but
_ fwiw.}
Thomas said:
Then they are appropriating the Scripture of a Tradition, aren't they, but then they tend to choose selectively, which invariably involves turning a blind eye to the bits they find personally testing or arduous.
Yes, Thomas. The Man told us that it would be our
7th Generation into which we would be working out some of these difficulties ... yet I kind of think it helps to accept the very tenet, for starters. THEN it's a whole lot easier to say, "Yes,
I have brought upon myself the current difficulties, as well as the (right to) the given Opportunity ~ to effect Solutions, to SERVE. Thus, *LET ME* make the most of it!
"
Can you say that?
Do you? [No, and for a very obvious reason. I could never extend an arm to such an one, so long as I get my fingers bitten off, slapped at, spit on and so forth. Thus, call me presumptuous and proud, vain and self-righteous. In
this respect ... that I would even OFFER ... I can simply stand, and wait. Meanwhile, a whole boatload, potentially anyway, of other people are thrashing about in the water. Forgive me, Brother, but I must be busy
elsewhere for awhile. ]
Thomas said:
Actually you are quite wrong, but typical of the self-affirming distortion of the message.
No, dear heart. Love IS the Highest Law. Stand United in that Recognition, or fall by the wayside and be crushed. It's that simple. Jagganatha doesn't take, or make, things
personal. In this, you are mistaken.
You can Jesusify anything you like, or
distort the meaning, as you say. But what you do not yet understand, may as well be in Vegas, or Cincinatti, or Poughkeepsie ... as London or Calcutta. YOU *simply*
do not "get it"!
Thomas said:
If you actually believed that LOVE is the highest LAW, then you would embrace the communal tradition, be it the Church of Christianity, or the Sangha of Buddhism, or whatever ... because you would love your neighbour.
How would you
ever know what I do or do not embrace. You, with your curmudgeony exterior, your long and withered finger pointed at each of us in Judgment, you know about as much on
Community ... from direct experience ... as I do about typesetting.
Perhaps if you would stop applauding yourself for a moment, and give the jackals and the hyenas a break for a little while, stop practicing Handel's Messiah with them (truly, Thomas, did you
really think they needed all that encouraging? all that coaching work?) ... maybe THEN you'd get a better dose of what
COMMUNITY is all about.
Thomas said:
But you don't. All you do is find fault and throw your toys out the pram when people disagree with you ...
The pram is consciousness, and/or its container/s. The toy is your mind, your lower consciousness ... in short, the little self.
I suggest you treat it (nevermind me) with a little Respect. For when you cannot love your OWN self, then project this outward, you make a fool of youself and embarass us all ... judging and faulting others (who's here telling us all that
our Tradition isn't wholesome, that
we aren't on the Road because
we aren't walking THE PATH, or
a `legitimate' Path ... and
which one must that be again, Thomas?)
Thomas said:
That's you mate, not me ... you constantly tell me how you are so much better than I, and Theosophy constantly claims to know better and be superior to all the Traditions that fall within its ken, and tell people what they should believe ...
You have here personified Theosophy, a
Tradition, as you like to call them, yet actually the
`Wisdom of God' ... just as you have the Love of God, which you have always confused with the particular expression 2100 years ago.
Better than you is the man who knows Love inside the child, inside the adult, within Nature and
independent of all Earthly religions. The name of such is legion, yet it is not the
demon or devil which you, and your unholy likeminded compatriots have
set up as the Scapegoat for all the world's evils, all the world's problems.
The first and foremost of these is IGNORANCE. Please do not prove to us today that, this too, can become INCARNATE ~ in some men
more than others, even to CARDINAL degree.
Indeed, some DO LIKE to tell others
what they should believe, and burn and torture and persecute and harangue those who believe otherwise, or choose another PATH to the One, Universal, All-Embracing TRUTH [of which Love, Goodness and
Beauty are operative effects, Laws or co-operative implications].
We do even have one such
in our midst: Thomas, we do indeed.
